Chapter 171

The commercial district outside the assembly hall.

I walked into one of the witch cafés that had been popping up like mushrooms after rain, thanks to the recent rise in witches’ rights.

The menu only offered a single item, “Witch Coffee,” but the place seemed to have a cat café concept, as witches disguised as felines were shedding fur all over the place.

There were calicos, mackerel tabbies, orange tabbies, and above all, my absolute favorite—the Super-Class Monster Cat Gargantua (SSR).

With a miniature black hole sitting on its neck instead of a head and twelve planets orbiting around it, the replica was incredibly detailed.

I sat the creature on my lap and ordered a coffee.

Then, looking across the table at Flauros, whom I hadn’t faced in a long time, I offered a greeting.

“Ahem. It has been a while.”

“You seem to have been quite busy lately.”

“It turned out that way involuntarily. I have to manage the factions of the witches and the succubi, and my responsibilities in human society are quite significant…”

“So significant that our promise didn’t even cross your mind?”

—Meowww!!

The Gargantua sitting on my lap shrieked and bolted away.

The Witch Coffee sitting on the table had definitely been iced when it came out, but the ice melted in an instant, sending up plumes of hot steam.

Indirectly gauging her anger level through my tongue, I cautiously spoke up.

“Of course I remembered.”

“Then say it with your own mouth.”

“I said that if you defeated the Apostle of the Outer God, I would serve Lady Flauros forever.”

“I defeated him.”

Ah, hot!

“You, too, must naturally keep your promise.”

“Where exactly did you defeat the Apostle of the Outer God?”

“At the Purple Magic Tower in Ground Zero. He climbed all the way up to where I was to reclaim the Outer God he served.”

According to the secret pact we had made back when Mala-nim ran away from home, it was true that I had lost to her.

Perhaps that was why Flauros was triumphantly demanding that I forge a blood pact with her as promised.

“But as you know, he is still walking around perfectly fine, isn’t he?”

“Whether he was resurrected for some reason or had a twin brother doesn’t matter.”

“Lady Flauros…”

I stared directly into her ruby-like eyes and asked.

I was questioning the Archduke of Flames, a woman possessed of an unquenchable, burning competitive streak and a nobility rare for a demon.

“Be honest with me. Did you really fight the Apostle of the Outer God and win?”

“…”

“…”

“I-I did.”

Though she couldn’t bring herself to look me straight in the eye, she refused to take back her lie to the very end.

Does she think I won’t notice just because I’m wearing the Patel mask?

Or does she want to make me her Familiar so badly that she’s willing to throw away her pride?

As an awkward silence filled the air, a blazing fist slammed down on the table with a loud thud!

The slightly cooled coffee began to boil again, and the cats in the café started going wild.

“Q-Quiet!”

“I didn’t say anything, though?”

“I mean the sound of those petty gears turning in your head is loud! I kept my promise, so now it is your turn.”

She grabbed me by the collar.

She put a considerable amount of strength into it, as if she would never again let go of this thing that had finally fallen into her hands.

“If you refuse, only death awaits. You saw Karzos’s subordinates burning on the pyre.”
“Are you planning to send me there?”

“The chairwoman will target you next for the Archduke summoning. I will simply cast a quiet vote in favor of that decision.”

“If my soul burns and I am revived, I might no longer remember Lady Flauros. Would you still be fine with that?”

“It does not matter.”

Releasing my collar at last, she crossed her arms and said something truly spectacular.

“Because I am confident.”

“Confident in what?”

“Confident that I can become the object of your service. If the first one you met hadn’t been that demon but me, things wouldn’t have reached this point in the first place.”

What on earth are you talking about?

The worthy rival who used to laugh while crushing each other’s eyeballs was gone.

Before me stood only a woman who wanted to make a pitiful black mage her own, even if it meant burning a soul.

“Just in case, I have to ask.”

“What is it?”

“What exactly do you want to do after making me your Familiar?”

Patel’s exploits were vastly exaggerated.

The number of times I had directly shown something in front of Flauros could be counted on one hand.

Aside from providing the political advantage of unifying the succubi and witches for her, since she was already elected as the leader of the Seat of Flame, I had no real use.

At my question, Flauros hesitated to answer, holding her cup.

“That…”

The longer the silence dragged on, the more the temperature around her skyrocketed.

The coffee evaporated entirely, leaving only the scorched beans at the bottom emitting a burnt smell.

“That…”

The glazed ceramic cup wasn’t safe either.

The cup Flauros was holding warped like metal pulled straight from a furnace, then burned right through the table and dropped to the floor.

“Th-That…!”

“Y-You don’t have to tell me!”

By the time my teeth were chattering, my legs were trembling, and the walls and ceiling of the witch café were shaking, I barely managed to calm her down.

I didn’t know what terrifying deed she was planning after making me her Familiar, but it was certain that it would be difficult to maintain the same daily life as before.

In that case, it was only natural for negotiations to break down.

I stood up first, packing the Gargantua merchandise left behind in the café where all the witches had fled.

“Unfortunately, I think it will be difficult.”

“Are you rejecting me?”

“I mean the time is not right. Just like Karzos, I still have a lot of work left to do here.”

“If you cannot leave this place safely, you won’t even get the chance to do that work.”

“We’ll have to see about that.”

Even though there was no one here to help me, I had a plan.

“Because the night isn’t over yet.”

Ha Yeri was searching the interior of the assembly hall, which the demons had vacated in large numbers.

The item she was eyeing hungrily was none other than Vice-Chairman Kravec’s staff.

It was an artifact that functioned to control the witch’s mirror.

If she could just destroy that, she would be able to stop the Archdukes, excluding Furcas, from crossing over to Earth.

“Oho, so you know how to use White Magic too? No wonder Karzos had his eye on you.”

“If we had lost her as a sacrifice for the resurrection of the Archduke of Symphony, it would have been a massive loss.”

“Then what is that sword? I hear a strange voice whenever I get close to it.”

“Th-Th-This is just an ornament! I just picked it up on the street…”

While Moon Ah-rin drew the gaze of the demons, Ha Yeri slipped away from the Seat of Flame and circled the perimeter, keeping her eyes glued only to Kravec’s movements.

And soon enough, she caught an opportunity when he went to the restroom.

He had left his staff right in the middle of the platform.

Right now, she might be able to get her hands on it without anyone noticing.

Pretending to look at the posters on the wall, she naturally turned her steps and slowly approached the platform.

Seizing a moment when no one was looking, she carefully reached out, but she ran into an unexpected problem.

‘It’s too high!’

The Bureau headquarters she usually used was fine because all the stairs and ledges were adjusted to her height, but climbing onto the demons’ podium was no easy task.

Of course, as an Upper Level Awakened, it was a piece of cake for Ha Yeri to leap higher than her own height using just a fraction of her mana.

The problem was that because the pyre hadn’t been lit yet, everyone here was currently in a spiritual body state.

In this place without mana, elevator shoes, or a footstool, she was nothing more and nothing less than a helpless little kid.

“Eek, eeek…!”

However, Ha Yeri did not give up.

Like a climber scaling an unconquerable snow-capped mountain, she took one step after another toward the stairs that were as high as her hips.

She was completely out of breath, and her cramped calves and thighs trembled violently, but she couldn’t back down even an inch.

If she let go of this chance now, the cost might return as the sacrifice of many times more comrades.

After barely managing to climb seven steps over the course of seven minutes, she caught her breath and looked up at the final obstacle—the podium resting on the platform.

It was the wooden speech lectern where Kravec, who stood well over two meters tall, had left his documents and adjusted the microphone volume.

On top of it lay the staff she had been searching for so desperately.

“Phew…”

She had no physical strength left.

If she got caught after coming all the way here, there would be no way out alive.

Even so, Ha Yeri renewed her resolve and loosened up her body.

Her plan was to kick the podium and knock the staff down.

She recalled the memories of kicking Hayan’s shins in the past.

At the very moment she was hiding behind the podium waiting for an opportunity, a small explosion echoed from outside the assembly hall.

—What is that? An invasion from the outside?

—No way. If that were the case, the chairwoman would have reacted first.

—It’s over by the commercial district… Isn’t that where Lady Flauros headed earlier?

—Smoke is rising. A building must have caught fire.

Whether by some stroke of casual luck, the attention of the demons remaining in the assembly hall instantly shifted to one place.

Following that, the thunderous sound of a building collapsing echoed out.

Not missing the opening, Ha Yeri kicked the podium with all her might using her right foot.

With the impact, the staff resting on top rolled over.

Not knowing which side it would fall on, she peered around on her tiptoes before squeezing out the last of her energy to throw her body forward.

With a loud crash, Ha Yeri tumbled and fell below the platform.

Quickly snapping out of it, she raised her head.

Her wig had been knocked off, and pain rippled through her entire body, but her hand was gripping the crystal ball attached to the tip of the staff.

“I got…!”

“I caught you.”

Just when she had finally secured the tool to control the witch’s mirror and the key that could forcibly end Walpurgis Night.

A leisurely voice drifted down from above her head.

It belonged to a woman wearing a conical hat just like the witches and dressed in a black gown.

The one who had been sitting in the Seat of the Abyss and glancing over here occasionally was the master of the witches and the chairwoman who had established this Council.

“I was watching because something felt off, and as I thought, you aren’t that Incarnation from back then.”

She was the very person who had dragged the Outer God of Salvation down from the sky and crushed the Yellow Magic Tower during the Great Invasion.

Although the full force of the Special Unit had mobilized back then to sever her giant hand—her true form—they had ultimately failed to subjugate her completely.

The nameless Archduke, who was missing one hand, reached out with her other hand to reclaim the crystal ball Ha Yeri was gripping.

Ha Yeri tried to resist to avoid losing it, but the moment she brushed against the hand weirdly lined with more than ten fingers, she involuntarily surrendered it.

That wasn’t the end of it.

“Besides, your face looks familiar… Have we met somewhere before?”

At the chairwoman’s intense gaze scrutinizing her, Ha Yeri involuntarily turned her head away.

In the direction her gaze landed, a wanted poster of Special Unit agents produced by the demon faction was pasted.

A poster depicting her own face was attached there, with the words “Division 2’s Minor Justice” written on it.